To our right, a two-story wood-and-glass living room took up one whole end of the house. It, too, was blanketed in shadow, but a spill of light from the dining room reflected clean lines against the generous expanses of exterior glass. Bare white walls formed a gallery for numerous paintings in heavy gold frames. I’m not a connoisseur of art, but they appeared to be museum-quality works: landscapes and still-life images in oil. These were not artists I could identify on sight, but the colors were rich and deep, and my impression was that a lot of money had been spent for the collection.

Over her shoulder, Hallie said, “I hope you won’t be cold if we sit outside. I’ve been enjoying the view. My husband left this morning for the house in Malibu while I close up here.”

“Must be nice to split your time that way,” I said. Personally, I split mine between my eight-hundred-square-foot apartment and an office half that size.

We went out onto the deck. Exterior lights had been extinguished, and in the lee of the house, the air seemed hushed. I could smell bay laurel, eucalyptus, and night-blooming jasmine. On a narrow terrace below, a bright turquoise infinity pool glowed like a landing strip. An open bottle of Chardonnay sat on a small wooden table flanked by two canvas director’s chairs. She’d brought out two stemmed glasses, and I saw that hers was half full. She took the closest chair and I settled in its mate.

She offered wine, which I declined as a way of demonstrating how professional I was. To be honest, with the slightest encouragement (bracing outside temperatures aside) I’d have lingered there for hours, drinking in the view along with anything else she had to offer. We were flanked by two small propane heaters that radiated a fierce but diffused heat that made me want to hold my hands closer, as though to a campfire.

Santa Teresa is almost always chilly after sunset, and once I sat down, I found myself wedging my fingers between my knees. I was wearing blue jeans and boots with a black turtleneck under my good wool tweed blazer, so I was warm enough, but I wondered how she could bear the night air in such flimsy attire, especially with the wind whistling around the edges of the glass. Locks of flyaway hair danced around her face. She removed two hairpins that she held between her teeth while she captured the loose strands and secured them again.

“How long have you owned the house?” I asked.

“I grew up here. This is the old Clipper estate. My father bought it in the early thirties, shortly after he graduated from architectural school. Halston Bettancourt. You may have heard of him.”

I made a sound as though of recognition, though I didn’t have a clue.

“After he razed the original three-story Georgian-style mansion, he built this, which is how he launched his career. He was always proud of the fact that he was featured in Architectural Digest more than any other single architect. He’s been gone now for years, and my mother has as well. The place in Malibu belongs to my husband, Geoff. He’s a G-E-O-F-F Geoff, not the J-E-F-F kind. We’ve been married two years.”